Hunter PvP Gear Guide

How to Gear any Hunter spec in WoW PVP

Updated for Warlords of Draenor. This was originally a Skill Capped guide, reprinted with permission and updated to Warlords by GotWarcraft. (The original page is here: BM S12 Gearing.) If you want to join Skill Capped, go here.

When it was first written this page focused on Beast Mastery, but many of the details will apply to both Marksmanship and Survival and we’ve added notes to that effect. Just use your stat priorities (shown below) instead of BMs and gem/reforge appropriately.

Gear Changes in Warlords: Hit, expertise, Resilience, and PvP Power are dead. PvP gear has two ratings, one PvE and one PvP. The PvP rating makes it clearly better for PvP than any PvE gear. Period.

Descriptions

Agility

Agility directly increases your Attack Power. It no longer increases your Crit. As an Agility class, though, you start off with 15% Crit anyway, so you won’t miss it.

Versatility

Adds a % amount to your damage and healing and half that to your damage reduction. So 10% Vers. is +10% damage (from all your sources) and 10% to healing you do to yourself and 5% less damage from other sources. This makes it a pretty good PvP stat.

Only does 150% damage n PvE (200% in PvE,) so not quite as nice as before WoD. MM Hunters get an additional 5% from their level 90 Lethal Shots ability.

Haste

Haste increases both the Hunter’s and their Pet’s attack speed. Faster attack speed will result in more damage output per second, but this damage will be predictable and lacks significant damage spikes when pressuring your target. PvP in Mists of Pandaria is very burst-oriented. The additional sustained pressure awarded from Haste does not justify the loss of other secondary stats that maximizes our burst potential.

Multistrike

Nerfed in PvP to be half as effective as in PvE (you get one chance at an additional shot, not two.) It’s kind of like a weak Crit. Survival gets an extra 5% Multistrike with their Lightning Reflexes ability, gained at 90.

Hunter PvP Gemming

There is no gemming in Warlords for PvP gear, at least not in season 1. The gems are there, but the sockets only appear on PvE gear. The gems only provide secondary stats, no Agility. If you’re using socketed PvE gear in your PvP then gem for your best secondary stats.

Enchants for Hunter PvP

Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about improving your situation.

Warlords Notes: There are no head enchants, all shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession and are only for items under items level 600. There are new enchants for Neck, Cloak, Weapons, and your Rings. Not for any other pieces. (Not yet, anyway.)

ADJUSTING STATS AS YOU GRIND

With Reforging gone, along with Hit and Expertise, it’s harder to play with stats. There are some gear choices (see below) and you can reroll the stats on the crafted gear, but that’s about it.

GETTING STARTED GEARING UP

Is PvE gear viable? Yes, in low level PvP. If the item levels are there. At level 100 the PvP rating on the gear will be much better than any PvE gear. PvP gear has two ratings, one for PvE and a second, much higher, for any PvP.

Also in the battlegrounds and the arenas PvE gear is scaled up, not down, so that piece of 620ish PvE gear will be 650 or so in the BGs or arena. .

Upon achieving level 100 you should not just jump into an Arena, or start grinding Battleground’s, or do any sort of PvP for that matter fresh off of leveling in your leveling items. Chances are many of the enemies in a Battleground will significantly out-gear your fresh level 100, which means they will have a significant advantage over you in a PvP setting.

Warlords Crafted Gear

Unlike previous seasons there is no crafted PvP gear in Warlords. You can make some raid quality items and wear a max of three of them. There will make a nice start into the BGs or Ashran until you can start getting your PvP gear. This gear can be worn at level 91 and is expensive to make (or buy.)

The armor, from leatherworking, is ilevel 640. The weapon, from Engineering, are 630. Both can be upgraded, at a greater cost than the original. Stats can be re-rolled until you get what you want. Grab a couple of the large armor pieces (eg: chest and legs) for the stats and then the weapon.

Tip: It is normally much cheaper to get the materials for these items yourself and have someone craft them for you, rather than buying them off of the Auction House. Even if you just buy the materials off the Auction House and spam trade, it’s normally cheaper. Always check first for good deals on the Auction House, though! (See these pages if you need more gold.)

The PvP Gear

Some PvP gear is awarded in strongboxes. You have to earn at least 500 points in a BG to win one of these and it will contain gold and/or honor and/or a piece of gear.

The three tiers of PvP gear in Warlords season 1 are these:

Aspirant’s Gear: This is the “basic” PvP tier at ilvl 600. In PvP, it automatically scales up to ilvl 660. This has a chance to be Warforged, adding 6 ilvls to both numbers. Aspirant gear is generally found in the strongboxes won in the BGs and other PvP events.

Honor Gear is the next tier up and can either be bought with honor or found in the strongboxes won after PvP battles. This season’s gear is called Primal Combatant’s gear, is ilvl 620 in PvE and 675 in PvP. This has a chance to be Warforged, adding 6 ilvls to both numbers.

Conquest Gear is Primal Gladiator’s Gear. This is bought from the vendor and might have a very small chance of appearing in one of those strongboxes. It is item level 660, and scales to ilvl 690 in PvP. Conquest gear cannot be Warforged.

You can obtain Aspirant’s gear and honor points from your level 2 Garrison Gladiator’s Sanctum work orders. To get the bones for those work orders you will be killing a fair number of players in world PvP. You can also get the bones, and other “parts” from Ashran, to hand in for honor and rep.

Pieces to Get First

Do you have an escape trinket (if you’re not human?) If not then get that first. Otherwise…

Get the weapon ASAP, as that’s you’re biggest upgrade. Honor weapons can be grabbed as soon as you have the points, Conquest weapons require 7,250 points earned first. The gloves and a big piece (head, chest, legs) will get you to 4k and then you save for the weapon.

DPS (“On Use”) trinket.

Get the rest of the big pieces and the gloves, that gets you the 4 piece set bonus.

Get the ring, neck, and cloak as they can all be enchanted.

Boots and bracers

Escape trinket

Hunter PvP Professions

Profession Bonuses are dead in Warlords.

Here are the best professions for Hunters in Mists of Pandaria PvP:

Engineering has some interesting items usable in BGs and world PvP, such as your crafted gun, rockets, shields, and stealth gadgets. These items can also be bought on the Auction House.

Leatherworking will make your starting raid (crafted) gear.

Blacksmithing and the rest offer few, if any, useful items or perks.

The gathering professions are just for the gold or to supply other professions.

Good Luck!

Credits and Comments

This guide was originally a collaborative effort between Tosan, Tika, and Braindeadly, produced by SkillCapped. It’s been massively modified since then, by GotWarcraft.

We hope this answers every question you had about Hunter PvP Gear. Let us know if we missed anything, or if there is something you need cleared up in the comments below, and we’ll be sure to get back!

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